The Your-State-Is-Small Generator
Dear everyone Outside,
You’re small. Yes, I’m talkin’ to you too, Texans.
You may be tired of hearing Alaskans talk about how big Alaska is, and how awesome our seafood is, and how gorgeous our sweeping mountain vistas are. And how we have more coastline than the rest of the country, and 3 million lakes, and spectacular wildlife, and aurora borealis.
But be kind to us and let us have our due. Remember that our political leadership is taking us back to the dark ages, and we have no public transportation to speak of, and we’re a minimum of a 4-hour plane ride from the rest of the country, and we have no professional sports teams, and winter lasts for more than half the year.
And in March, we all want to kill each other. And you.
So, for your amusement, here’s a link that will tell you how big we are compared to you. It’s actually pretty fun, and gives you a good sense of scale. Most people are used to seeing Alaska crammed in a little box somewhere off the coast of Baja. Behold our glorious in-your-face enormity.
Simply select your state from the drop-down menu HERE, and fine out how teeny you are.
But we do love you so, and want to pinch your adorable little cheeks and muss your hair when you come visit us! (And please bring us some fresh strawberries!)
http://tinyurl.com/k22px5q
Just found out that Obrien County in iowa will be getting a billion dollar wind farm. The turbines will be built in Highland(mine) Township and Center Township. Each township is 36 miles square. This is my final word on this subject,I hope.
As of 2012,iowa is numero uno in the percentage of state energy produced by wind generators at 24.5%. Mid-America Energy plans to spend another 1.9 billion bucks to increase wind energy. The downside,I suppose,is wind generators take a horrible toll on small birds. So I will post this and in my eternal shame won’t say anymore about it.
I imagine it’s not good for the large birds either….
http://grist.org/news/obama-administration-loves-wind-energy-hates-birds/
You would be correct,sir. Ouch!
Isn’t a lack of professional sports teams a good thing?
not when the wife is a rabid baseball fan and she wants to go see a game…. OMG, the commute from Alaska to Oakland would just keep me in the poor house !
it has been said up here in alaska that if we were to send all of our rabid tea party members to Texas it would raise the IQ of both states. 😉
I nod respectfully at Alaska’s size and majesty, and Alaska has the highest peak… However, Alaska has 21 fourteeners, while Colorado has 53.
And we’re getting more rain, so we may no longer be number one in the 2013 forest fire category.
I would like to visit, though…
Of course you would want to count fourteeners. But around here we start the count at fifteeners.
And that count is: Alaska 8, Colorado 0.
Or, to put it another way: Alaska 8, forty-nine undersized states 0.
True. But us Lower 48ers will take a Number One anyway we can get ’em.
You guys talking slot limits on walleyes or salmon? over 14 inches you throw ’em back?
iowa is home to two-count ’em-two John Waynes. Both are notorious for very different reasons. One John Wayne,born Marion Morrison grew up to be an actor in Hollywood and was in a lot of westerns,none of which I rllly cared for. The other was born John Wayne Gacy and was born in Waterloo.Iowa(hometown of Michele “one L’ Bachman) and grew up to be a serial killer. I didn’t much like him,either or her for that matter.
Well that explains a lot. On the USA map, San Francisco’s rocky, fog-swept Farallon Islands sit right at the tip of the Aleutians, which means I can see Alaska from my house. A few miles south of here, in Pacifica, is a tiny little neighborhood called Shelter Cove, that if you wanted to film a low-budget film about a remote island fishing community, with stone cobble beaches and weather-beaten dwellings, should be top of the location scouting list. (Sits on the old Ocean Shore Railroad grade; cut off by landslides so accessible only by private stairs, only locals allowed, so we can only gaze down on it from Pedro Point). Pacifica’s Montara Mountain (along with San Francisco’s Mt. Davidson, San Bruno Mountain, Twin Peaks, and Mt. Sutro) are also the southernmost extent of Nutka Reed Grass, a big, showy bunch grass that is much better adapted to foggy north slopes than the European annual grasses that have crowded out most of California’s other native bunch grasses.
Alaska has more teeny minds per capita than any state in the union. And we have a legislature to prove it. I could be wrong on that. Texas could have a horse in that race. Wait could i have that mistaken with gerrymandering.
I’m from NY but when I was in the army and a texan started boasting about big I’d threaten: “keep it up and we’ll get Alaska to split in 2 halves and make Texas the 3rd biggest state.” Usually quieted them a bit for a short time while they pondered it.
Alaska is 10 times the size of Wisconsin. Alaska Covers 663 268 sq miles. Wisconsin covers 65, 498. so 10 times that is 654, 980. Alaska has 3 million lakes, Wisconsin has 15000. Alaska has 91000 sq miles of water area Wisconsin 11000. while I love Wisconsin as a state, i’d love to visit Alaska.
Nick, we would love to have you visit! Just don’t forget to go away again! And take all the mosquitos you want!
Slip- local farm and garden center has b-i-r-c-h t-r-e-e-s for sale. Man, you have serious clout. Didn’t buy one. Hate raking leaves.
Alaska is well worth the effort to visit… especially the people in Juneau !! but if ya visit Slip, wear REALLY dark shades… those white legs will blind ya !!
You may laugh, but it’s my defense against charging bears.
This gonna be a spitting contest? iowa is big enuf. Location iz everything. In order for Alaska to stretch coast to coast,you have to have iowa smack dab dead center in Alaska. iowa iz 199 miles N to S which means you could traverse iowa on I-35 in 3 hours. In Alaska you can’t even freeze your buns off in 3 hours. iowa iz numero uno in hogs,corn and soybeans and most importantly,we have the largest disparity between Blacks and Whites arrests for maryjane possession,,something along the lines of six or eight times more Blacks get busted for poss. than White counterparts.Fortunately iowa law enforcement doesn’t use racial profiling. For some reason only Hispanic looking people get pulled over on the interstates for drug testing. The highest point in iowa iz when Dems control everything and the lowest point iz when rethugs are in charge. Who needs mountains? They block the view of green fields. Like the song sez-the only thing different,the only thing new,you’ve got those little things,iowa has me.(thanks to Patsy Cline-RIP and please disregard my singing ) Don’t ever forget-iowa is the ONLY state with E and W borders made of rivers.
but mikey- if you climb up the mountains you can see the green fields so much better!
supposedly we don’t have pigs here but after eating the smoked salmon I saved to put in my salad, making and eating the salad anyway, and having 2 slices of fresh warm rhubarb bread I’m not so sure…
dang, am going to go take a nap.
Truly, Alaska Pi and mike from iowa, I so immensely enjoy reading your incredible exchanges here on the ‘flats. And, that, my dears, is an understatement to beat all understatements!
I’m pretty sure I’d be totally content to spend a long weekend in close physical proximity to the two of you…just watching –in person– your marvelous individual minds do their magic as you play off the topic at hand and each other. That would, I’m thoroughly convinced, definitely be fun -and educational- as hell! I’m pretty sure a long weekend of up-close-and-personal of the process would, yup, be Sheer Bliss for me. Just thought I’d let you know. beth .
I bow in reverance to Alaska Pi. She gives me “Pffffts” AND she lives in a forest with bears.
I think it is a co-dependent thingy mikey.
We tilt at similar windmills.
I have a tendency towards a dark melancholy if I don’t laugh and swear often and long. Something in your corn or asparagus or something there gives you a funny bone, askew of the world to be sure 🙂 , which provides lots of appropriate inappropriate humor that is much appreciated.
beth- Also, too, even and as well- I so enjoy so many of the voices here in this fine place AKM has made. Yours especially .
AKM- thank you for a brief respite from all the ^$@$^&ing mess going on here and the reminders of what a wonderful place this is. Well. Minus the doofs who litter up the scenery anyway.
There may be hope to turn Maine blue next election for you and offspring.
http://democraticgovernors.org/republican-led-states-only-states-to-lose-jobs/?source=outbrain&subsource=pewinfo
http://www.newsmax.com/politics/lepage-maine-governor-poll/2013/06/28/id/512536
There’s a good chance! 🙂
Mr LePage is a real doof- he’s losing his so-called “rock solid” base.
Maine seems to manage pretty well most of the time to have moderates and be bluish purple- they sure stepped in it with this wahoo.
rethuglican pols must be clones with different names. They all look quite similar(white and male) and they sound virtually identical on all issues.
I think I could totally freeze my butt off in three hours. 😉
I snapped a picture of Brian’s iowa cousin and will send it as soon as I can find my usb cable for my card reader. Handsome brute with full headgear. Don’t think weather affects this one much.
chortle.. I prefer to look at both Alaska and Iowa as small in regards to hhmmm.. progressiveness…. compared to California, with possibly New York and Mass. as a close second/third . We seem to be more open minded, more culturally diverse, and certainly more of a leader amongst the other states… I believe the saying is ” As California goes, so goes the Nation”….
its frigging HOT here today 2nd day of 102 degrees !! and tomorrow to be more of the same.. thank goodness veggies are on auto drip cycle during the day… thankfully house is well insulated an stays cool, so long as I can keep wife from opening blinds during the day !!! Any one for HOT cherry tomatoes ??
iowa iz progressive under rethuglican guv braindead and we iz getting progressively worse. guv terry braindead was a founding member of ALEC and he used to keep 2 sets of books on iowa’s economy in his first go-round as guv braindead. One was reality and not good,the other showed how well his programs worked and the difference between the 2 sets of books is what made the Grand Canyon. I’d trade you some buttercrunch lettuce for hot tomatoes except your deer ate all the lettuce and some carrot tops. Apparently my skills with cb .22s didn’t impress them at all. Was 56 degrees this morning so I shut my fan off. Temps in upper 70s-low 80s for the week.Gonna pig out on spuds here this week. This is the latest I’ve had new spuds in nearly 30 years.
well trained little critters, aren’t they ? cat and I have been playing “whack-a-mole” lately.. he gets all”pouncy” at a location and I shove a garden hose in to flush the @#^@%& thing out… He gets pretty pissed off at me, cuz I won’t let him eat the darn thing…. and lets me know about it for an hour or so, then goes back to listening for more. of course, the back yard looks like a giant acupuncture block has been applied, to it…
Yes, benlomond2, I’d LOVE some hot cherry tomatoes. And thank you for wishing me happy birthday on FB yesterday. Although I was technically born on June 29th, it wasn’t till 18 minutes till midnight all those decades ago, so I’m celebrating today, too.
What I DON’T understand about huge, beautiful Alaska is time zones. Who decided you should only have one, when technically you should have four (or is it five)? Why?
I couldn’t copy the link, but Alaska Historical Society’s web site has a fascinating account of Alaska’s time zones. See “Discover Alaska”, “Keeping Time in Alaska”.
http://www.alaskahistoricalsociety.org/index.cfm/discover-alaska/Glimpses-of-the-Past/98
That reference is a good one CO!
It really is still a matter of much frustration here. The summer- not as much, since we have so many hours of daylight. Between solstices- different story for much of the state.
I have friends in Bristol Bay who are almost spot on the same latitude as I am but the difference in longitude makes for a very different daylight time for over half the year. ( We are just shy of 850 miles apart East/West as the eagle flies )
The extension of daylight savings time earlier and later in the year drives me bats personally but I don’t know that we’ll win that one.
Because AK is one state that’s why. AK likes to keep it simple.
Is that what it is?
You sure there isn’t another name for the phenom? 😉
Good to see you here. Hope you are having a good summer!
Pretty sure CA is leader in traffic that Alaskans have a tough time navigating.
you betcha !! … must be those 2 way streets that throw ya for a loop… ::